Flimsy yard signs, mud-slinging letters to the editor and local politicians pretending to care about the students ' must be election season in Athens.
It is once again that time when the university must acknowledge there is a city somewhere outside College Gate and local politicians remember there are a bunch of stupid kids they can trick into ultimately winning them the election.
I know there are reasonable students at Ohio University who follow Athens politics more than long-term residents. But there is a much larger percentage of the voting student population that will think the extra r in Garry Hunter's name is a typo on the ballot.
Even the most seasoned student voter has only three years of experience with Athens. We are at an extreme disadvantage in terms of information about the records of our candidates. With all the rhetoric flinging about, we are left to choose our overlording officials on flimsy promises instead of fact.
But how are the knowledgeable students supposed to pick a candidate that will work for their best interests? In terms of ideas that will impact students, Ed Baum and Paul Wiehl are quite similar. Both are in favor of reducing traffic on Court Street to one lane with angled parking to accommodate more cars. Both see the need for sidewalk repair, although Wiehl is realistic enough to know it is not a high priority and won't get the attention it deserves. And like all Athens politicians, both refuse to acknowledge the bar, restaurant and hotel taxes that balance what the city spends on Halloween.
I would love to be able to rally the students to the polls, waving the American flag and chanting the whole way to the polling stations. But in the only race that will be remotely close, the mayoral election, the voters will have to decide between an unrealistic idealist in Baum, the anti-Halloween Wiehl or the newbie Sergey Kahn.
Despite his inexperience, Kahn has a couple things going for him. If elected, whenever something goes wrong in this city, we'll all be able to shout KAAAAAAAHN! at the top of our lungs. And yes, Trekkies, I know your Khan switches the a and the h in his name, but homophones are fair game.
For many quarters, the liberal crazies on campus have been complaining about how the governance on this campus is not fair, asking politely for a more powerful student government to check the overpaid and overstaffed OU administration. Kahn, instead of playing ball with the university, has shrewdly circumvented them and attempted to gain control of the one organization that already has the power and gumption to check at least some of the college's outrageous whims ' the city.
In America, we have elected worse men for worse reasons. Men like Dick Armey and John Boehner rely on their names to get them elected. Power networks and voting records aside, these men rely on the juvenile aspect of their names to gain and stay in power. The chuckle you elicit upon reading their name on the ballot pales to the maniacal cackle these politicians produce once you vote for their silly name.
Sadly, this is the great misfortune of American voting. On one hand, every person gets one vote and is equal to all others. On the other hand, the ignorant get one vote just as the informed get one. And with the uninformed voting in much larger numbers than the informed, our democracy, even in little Athens, has shifted to a popularity contest that can be won with dollars rather than ideas.Chris Yonker is a senior journalism major. Send him campaign contributions at cy129904@ohiou.edu
17 Archives
200711026269midsize.jpeg
